What Are We All Playing This Weekend?

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One more day and my hilarious April Fool’s prank would be saying that everyone sent me their WAWAPTW? bits so I wouldn’t be forced to lie like some kind of monster. But you, I can trust you. Tell me: what are you playing this weekend?

Adam: More Dark Souls III for me. I think I can see the light at the end of the dungeon but it might well be the glint in a demon’s eye.

Alec: [Alec is away, because.]

Alice: I wish Adam had been under that daft sort of NDA where reviewers couldn’t even say they had the game. Thanks, Adam. Great. Good for you. Anyway, this weekend I’m planning to visit That There England for Now Play This, a festival some pals have organised. The lineup is pretty great, and their setup in Somerset House looks rad. I am up for an indoor badger sett. So I will go to The London and look at things and touch them.

Graham: [Graham is away, because.]

John: This weekend I’m trapped in a car driving to Cornwall and back, so my gaming is going to be limited to my telephone, and thus not of this parish.

However, if I get a chance either side of the trip, I plan to return to Hyper Light Drifter and see if people are correct that I can continue off in other directions (despite the map being blank) before I take on this confounded tedious bossfight, and hopefully be able to enjoy more of the game.

I also plan to murder and eat more of my collea… I mean have a nice sit down. A nice sit down, that’s what I’m going to do.

Philippa: This weekend I don’t really know what I’ll be playing. I’m at a bit of a loose end, truth be told. I’ve come to the end of the single-player things I’ve been playing and my relationship with multiplayer is a bit off-and-on right now – more off than on, truth be told. That said I do keep going back to the Overwatch beta and Heroes of the Storm, so perhaps it will be a Blizzardy weekend.

113 Comments

I know last weekend I said “finishing STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl”, but I’m still finishing it. I accidentally took one of the dialogue options introduced by my mod to join a faction (the scientists at Yantar), and didn’t realise until much later, and found that I couldn’t proceed as I wished in my main quest. So I had a break for a few days, and then restarted from an old save. Fortunately I had one from about 10 minutes before that fateful click.

I’m also reflecting on the notion that pride goes before a fall. About a week ago I posted on the RPS forums describing how I control my game backlog. Then a bunch of wishlist stuff went on sale and in a couple of days I bought: Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag, Divinity Original Sin EE, Tomb Raider 2013, and Trine 1. I’m now verging on a disk space crisis and I need to play the bigger games first. All of those except Divinity aggravate my slightly arthritic left wrist.

You’re in for a treat. The Bloodborne DLC is among the DLC for any game I’ve ever played. It’s extremely rich in content, and the lore fits so so seamlessly and beautifully into the existing game. Better, even, than Artorias of the Abyss (the Dark Souls DLC which came free with the PC version). The only downside is that it could be extremely difficult for first time players, though it doesn’t look like you’ll have that problem.

I’ll mostly be playing a game called deadlines, but lately I’ve been craving some Invisible Inc. so I’ll try and squeeze it in.

I can relate to that. I didn’t think much of football games until actually tried one after an almost 20 year hiatus, it was a revelation that lead to a spending spree, buying all sorts of sports games.

To me its the mechanics in these games, of using the controller in more fun and creative ways. There’s a technical aspect to sports games that is really fun to learn and try to master.

Darkest Dungeon is right up my alley and is freaking hard. I was surprised to find that there’s no actual fail state, you just keeping pushing until you manage to beat it. I feel that ultimate victory may be a fair way away. The art-style and atmosphere are great.

After reading John’s first impressions of Hyper Light Drifter which put me off a game I had been waiting so long to play I bit the bullet and went ahead and purchased it anyway to see what all the fuss was about. It took about 10 goes but I eventually beat the “first” boss (apparently not the first since you are able to go to other locations too) and I am thoroughly enjoying the game. It is rather difficult mind and you die a lot. Like, really a lot.

So this weekend I’m playing HLD and a bit of Assassin’s Creed Syndicate which I need to finish. Then there’s the rest of the backlog… oh dear…

I will be seeing if I can force myself asleep at around 9pm so I can do some Elder Scrolls Online raid thingy with people in the US at 3am while mumbling less coherently than usual at my meatspace friends who’ll’ve also joined the fray.

Aside from that, I played some Awesomenauts last night after listening to its soundtrack while making dinner, so there might be more of that. Such excellent music.

Have been thinking about getting Starpoint Gemini 2 for a while and it’s 80% off on Steam so think I’ll give it a whirl. Some more death and misery in Xcom 2 as well, plus a little Dark Souls to get the muscle memory prepared for the third coming.

You should look at a few more vids on Starpoint Gemini… I thought it was a decent space-action game but it’s just.. ugh. Your taste may differ, but it’s no Freelancer/Starlancer and definately not a X-game.

Don’t!
Though i’m not that comfortable talking bad about the game because i get the impression the devs are very motivated and nice chaps all around, but it just isn’t very good.

Story mode is atrocious and not in the -so bad it’s good- kind of way, i had to restart in sandbox mode before the first mission ended.
The rest is… just there. You fly around, trade a bit, fight a bit, scan a few anomalies but everything is bare bones, uninteresting and a bit tacky.
I didn’t like the ships, art direction, weapons, modules, class abilities, it lacks soul and polish.

I bought it before i got a new rig as an Ersatz for the Elite beta but even with low expectations from the beginning it didn’t grip me at all.
I am no expert in this genre but i would suppose there are other titles with more fun to be had out there.

I hope the devs have a good game in them but sadly it didn’t materialise this time.

Wow that’s pretty damning. Too late though as I’ve already bought it. To be honest I’m just looking for something calm and spaaaaacey to pass the time before DS3 comes out. And while xcom 2 is great it’s not particularly calming. All that said I’m still hopeful that I’ll get *some* enjoyment out of it. You’re talking to a man who sunk 700 hours into Fallen Enchantress…

Dark Souls II: SOTFS. I’ve beaten Dark Souls II before, but now doing it with all the DLC etc. on the SOTFS version that was on steam sale over xmas or whenever it ended up in my steam library. Currently 2 of 4 great bonfires lit.

Also, because I haven’t see an article/thread for “stuff games are doing for Lies Day this year”, if you’ve got From the Depths, go fire up the vehicle designer, look around, spawn some classic Deepwater Guard ships.

Picked up The Witcher 3 last weekend, so will be continuing with that. Not played huge amounts so far, but enough to see that huge amounts of love and care has been poured into it.

Unfortunately, I am seriously under leveled for all the quests I am finding. I feel like I must have missed huge quantity of experience in the opening area, as I left that still at level 1.

I am now stuck in the middle of a quest with a Sorceress that suggests being level 6 when I am only level 3. I have managed OK in it so far (although, a fight with Golem was pretty hairy,) but I am now at what I believe to be the final battle of the quest and keep getting mobbed by these Wild Hunt beasts coming from portals. I can close the first 2 just about (and handily have enough experience to level up in the middle of the second,) but the third I just keep getting caught out. Things are not helped by being in this tiny circle that you can’t leave without taking damage from the Wild Hunt’s icy thing.

Been getting quite frustrated by this fight now, with the inability to save between closing portals and the extremely long load times (on PS4,) not helping matters. I should probably find a save from before accepting this quest, but I’m so close to completing it that I want to try battling on through it.

I’m also replaying the witcher 3. The early game, up to about level 5 is quite hard as there aren’t enough quests for your level. After that you become more and more overloaded and the opposite becomes true. Stick with it, its worth it , but return to that first area if you can.

Formula Truck 2013 – a truck-racing sim I recently got, right now I’m only doing test laps in order to learn what effects the different truck settings will have. Its very different from racing a car.

Stock Car Extreme – made by the same dev as above. I feel finished [for now] with their 2012 game so I’ve started with this new one. It has several more car-types and championships than the 2012 game. I especially like the Formula Retro car, it is incredibly addictive to drive.

Death to Spies 1 & 2 – replaying these classics before I play Alekhine’s Gun, which is basically Death to Spies 3. I really like this style of stealth game, its like classic Hitman but with more interesting historical context and atmosphere.

Somerset house sounds nice. Perhaps I shall venture over there and at least see some of the nice weather. Wiped out this weekend so I’m not sure what I’ll get up to. KOTOR 2 is finished and my word doesn’t it end… Oddly? Badly? I don’t know.
Also my HellDivers are not diving this weekend and they are all off in Europe so I can start on something else. Current options are Californium, Fire Watch or The Witness methinks.

I just got my hands on Chroma in Warframe, and have Volt cooking right now, so i am pretty excited to give those a spin.

As for Sunless Sea, i am playing it again partially to prep for EGX Rezzed next week, where i really want to talk to them geniuses at Failbetter, and partially because i wanted to show one of my online friends how deep and literary games can be.

I would say I’m play STALKER: Shadow Of Chernobyl, but it would probably be more accurate to say I’m trying to play STALKER. I just got it and the other two STALKER games in a bundle, but my first two attempts have had me dying within the first five minutes. Maybe not the game for me, will probably move on to other games. :) Perhaps I would have more patience if I was on holiday, but spring break for me ended a mere week ago!

Noooo do persist. They are truly masterpieces. If you REALLY are struggling the only cheat I will let you do is one of those “good early items” guides that shows a lot of the potentially hidden early good weapons/items that make things a lot easier. But honestly it does ruin some of the fun. The one that most benefits from this is Clear Sky (as the first map has crazy good stuff hidden in some not-so-obvious places).

SoC isn’t really all that hard. I wouldn’t worry if I were you. Just don’t expect Stealth to be possible. Other than that, it gets easier after you are done with Agroprom, since you start to get better equipment and not suffer from ammo shortages as much anymore. It also has Quicksave, which, at least to me, is really helpful to not get frustrated.

My recommendation to new Stalker players (which I’m sure some people will disagree with, but I make nonetheless) is to just straightaway install the Complete mod(s). They don’t make major gameplay changes but in my experience they do tweak enough that Shadow of Chernobyl became far more accessible and I ultimately fell so in love as to complete the whole thing despite that rough start. Plus they make everything look better and bug out less.

There are more radical overhaul mods to explore once you’re a veteran, but Complete’s the way to go first time out.

That’s a pretty common reaction to the start of Stalker SoC. The first mission is pretty tough with just a pistol. Use cover and let the guys with you do most of the dying. And don’t give up if you fail a few times.

As soon as you get that mission done though you’ll have the AK, Viper and shotgun and you’ll immediately be having a lot more fun.

The game will still be hard through the first few areas though until you start getting the better weapons. It’s well worth persisting with though, Stalker games have so much atmosphere.

I hope you can persist because they are really unique games, there are things to see and experience in these games that you simply won’t find in any other games. The Metro games give you a brief glimpse of it, but that’s just scratching the surface of what the Stalker games are.

The games are tough but once you get over the initial difficulty hurdle things do even out, largely because you understand just what kind of game it is and what is required of you.

Its shouldn’t be that hard to find advice on the web for newcomers to the game, perhaps have a look at those ? Its definitely worth sticking with it.

Just to add my comment of support to stick with it:
Stalker SOC is the best pc game of all time imo – so stick with it!
The first mission to the farmhouse is really more about survival than taking out baddies. Caution at all times, and you will still have to reload many times. Let the AI try to be Rambo, both allies and enemies and you will end up the last man standing.
SOC doesn’t follow a lot of accepted game systems. It is definitely from the era of brutal games that require reloading, there is not the hand-holding gently progressing difficulty curve you get with modern games. But that isn’t a criticism, that is part of what makes it unique, more realistic and more rewarding.

Yeah, you are right about the reloading. With this kind of save-system it doesn’t bother me too much personally, but others might not be used to it. And of course, as long as one is clueless about the mechanics, there will be more reloading. SoC might also suffer from a similar (perceived) problem as Alpha Protocol (for example): Weapons-precision is atrocious in the earlier stages. In a way it feels more like you are playing a RPG. Which, as I understand, can be offputting to people, especially when we are talking 3rd-person- and 1st-person-games.

Pretty fantastic action-horror game that blends third-person shooting and fixed camera angles into an enjoyable and responsive control system.

Still looks pretty good, and while the PC version doesn’t support gamepads the keyboard controls are infinitely better than I expected (mouse support out the rear end compared to other old 6th gen ports) so that’s a non-issue.

I am playing Total War: Attila, where king Alaric has risen with the Goths in open rebellion to the Romans who have been brutally extorting them for the past 20 years despite these same Goths having won quite a few battles for them.

Picked up Hyper Light Drifter, and decided this will be the first game I actually record. This stuff is surprisingly tricky, especially if you are usually pretty quiet like me. Played the first 20 Minutes around four times now as a result, but hey, progress, and my very first episode got uploaded yesterday.Its an interesting experience.
Really digging the artstyle of the game, and I will see how I will fare against the bosses.
Other then that, the usual, some Monster Hunter, Fire Emblem and probably something not known yet.

I’m spending today round at a friends house for drinks, pizza, and an attempt to complete Ocarina of Time in one single burst. So far it’s being hampered by the fact that we’re trying to do this on a glitchy rom, but here’s hoping. I’ve also brought Skull for the moments when we’re all sick of videogames.

I have started Neverwinter Nights 2 at the start of February and have played it consistently for a while. Then I played through Titan Quest for the first time in less than two weeks, which is pretty quick for me, and finished Torchlight for the second time recently. Now it’s time to go back to my NWN2-playthrough. I’m done with the first chapter after 50 hours so it should still be a while.

Deus Ex HR – still at the very beginning. Just entered Detroit for the first time. Enjoying the game so far. Only thing which I think is a bit distracting are the yellow outlines for doors, items etc. Who thought that was a good idea?

Strider – one hour into it. Great fun!will probably play this the most this weekend.

Spelunky – doing the daily challenges over the long weekend. Tomb sweeping day this Monday so three days no office. Yay!

Like Pip I’m in that post game funk after finishing AC4 and it’s dlc early in the week. After considering a number of things, Arkham Knight, AC: Rogue, going back to Rise of the Tomb Raider, I started up Dragon Age Inquisition last night to play the last two bits of dlc, I’ll see if it sticks.

AC Rogue was a fun game, it focuses more on the ship combat, which I really enjoyed. I liked the storyline too, seeing things from a Templar’s view. It sort of went under the radar for many people after the Unity troubles.

Ugh, while I didn’t actively dislike that part in AC4 I wasn’t fond of it and mostly avoided it when I could. Which is funny, because I like it in AC3 and made sure to do every naval mission in that one.

I think a big part of Rogue getting over looked was also the fact that it was a last gen game that was announced later and released after Unity, which got all the attention.

Here’s hoping that one’ll find its way over to PC someday down the line.

And yeah, I thought I’d go back since I had only played the original without whatever they added in “Afternoon of Darkness” but it’s really hard to go back and play the first one, even if the only other one you’ve played is 2 there’s just so much more and polished stuff.

Aside from Godville and all the other games running themselves in the background constantly I’ll finish Epistory at least the campaign, revisit Saint’s Row 3 and maybe dive into the new version of Modpack “the ferret business”.
Will keep me covered until DS3 arrives.

Bought a new graphics card and wanted to give it a serious test drive, but realised i don’t have any demanding titles right now.
So i kept eying The Division yesterday but i don’t know if that would be a good idea because i’m no regular fan of shooty bangs and i had my fair share of MMOs. Had my fill of grind throughout the years and don’t want to go back…but still, something is tempting me.

The other candidate would be the Witcher 3 but after Dragon’s Dogma i’m unsure if i’m in the mood for another classical fantasy RPG already. And would like to wait for the GOTY edition anyway.

Last week, against better judgment, i bought into the Master of Orion beta and even if i just saw it as a distraction until Stellaris is released, the progress so far is underwhelming. Some nice ideas like the pollution mechanic but many concepts are watered down too much and i really detest star lanes. A lazy mechanic for easy balancing and makes space feel like a terrestrial strategic map instead of, you know, SPACE. The fuel mechanic in MOO 2 was not that bad and i miss it ever since.

So i’m deperately searching for something to tickle my fancy but nothing on the radar just yet.

Yes, i was considering that too but i don’t quite appreciate the grimdarkgrittybleak direction the reboots are rooting for.
It seems, nowadays you are only allowed to delve into exploration when you have to eat maggots, craft weapons out of bones and sweat and the protagonist must suffer in every second cutscene.

I’m beginning to sound like a pretty obnoxious nitpick right now, but i can’t count the titles in my libraray that i bought on a whim, tried them for a few hours but never finished them. And even if it’s an absurd thought for digital goods, but i find this approach somewhat…wasteful.

I should probably finish Oxenfree. There’s not that much left and it’s such a lovely little game. I’m also close enough to beating Pillars of Eternity that I could probably manage that if I focus on it. Assuming I can kill the big dragons, which is a big assumption.

Kind of riding high on Hex right now though and want to play more of the PvE campaign, which I’m finally managing to progress in thanks to some deckbuilding tips and the huge pile of cards from opening my Kickstarter packs. Also kinda want to dip back into Marvel Heroes or American Truck Simulator or something like that to try futilely to keep up with my podcast subscriptions. And I wouldn’t mind pushing a little further on Mad Max or Assassin’s Creed III. So we’ll see!

XCOM 2. I’m around 20 hours into my first campaign and things tend to go well when I’m on the ground (at least in my last few missions) but there are only two blocks left on the countdown. I have 3 facilities I can hit, unfortunately I don’t have those regions open to me and I haven’t enough intel to contact them so I’m trying to spend as much time as possibe at HQ to scan. I’m starting to wonder if my campaign is screwed.

You’re not screwed. Honestly, I wish they explained this better because so many people that “hate” on X-COM are scared of that counter, but in reality you have HEAPS of time and it’s just to push you through at least some of the story. Even when it maxes out you still have another countdown that ticks in.

Probably going to mess around some with my second playthrough of Fallout: New Vegas. At the moment, I’m just about to meet the Legion for the first time, and I’m kicking around the idea of joining up with them, but can I really bring myself to that level of psychosis?

A little Nuclear Throne also, as always. I got the achievement for beating Lil Hunter thanks to a bug, and I will remain uneasy until I actually earn it. I’m not really good enough to do that yet, though.

Wolfenstein The Old Blood. Was in a serious need of some action fix for myself, and I was thinking of giving The New Order another playthrough, then I saw The Old Blood on sale in a key seller site. Got it, I’m playing and loving it.

I didn’t really like The Old Blood mostly because the weapon selection was so limited compared to New Order. I more or less played the entire game using the assault rifle and rarely found a reason not to.

Picked up BG1 EE and Siege of Dragonspear, Knights of Pen and Paper 2 and both parts of the White March this week, also hoping to pick up BG2 EE and Renowned Explorers today as well. Also gonna try to get further in Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright this weekend as well.

Still hooked on Devil Daggers, current PB 266 seconds. I thought I would have had enough when I got to the top thousands players, but no. Managed to get the 6 spiders dead and even had the area clear at around 230, but the 2nd worm was still burrowed and that ultimately got me. Feels like if you can get the spiders dead and clear the towers (which is very hard), it gets easier for a while and maybe getting to 300+ won’t be that much harder.

Picked up The Division yesterday and want to start that today. I know the story/gameplay isn’t the best but it’ll keep me occupied until Dark Souls 3. Also playing GTAV, 2nd playthrough and meaning to play the Dishonored DLCs.

Overwatch beta. Dunno what to think really. I’ve had fun rounds and some close games, but overall there seem to be a lot of problems, some by design and some by oversight.

Things like putting the only team teleporter as the ultimate of one support hero that no one seems to play, which turns the game into a slog back to the fight after every death. The number of stuns, knock backs, and other assorted disables can make for a frustrating experience. I don’t think i’ve ever played another FPS that likes to take away control of your character as much as Overwatch does. The visual noise identified in the early previews is still an issue, it can be very difficult to see past the particle effects, and picking players out against the background is still more difficult than it should be. There are too many auto aim ultimate abilities, unsatisfying to use and frustrating to be killed by, which feels like lazy design. Six man teams create a problem for matchmaking as it’s much harder to get a well balanced game with a small player pool. The game is quite bad at providing feedback mid fight, such as from what direction you are taking damage, or the effectiveness of support abilities such as shields. Basically a lot of problems that Valve solved with TF2 years ago. I’ll keep playing it while the beta is on, but i’m not sold on it yet.

I finished STASIS and Her Story last week (it was a very eventful week!), so now I think I’m going to dive head first in to XCOM 2 finally. I’m not someone who’s interested in playing The Hardest Game Ever, I quite like the steam roll victory I had in EU/EW. Hopefully that’s an option on the normal difficulty here.

I’m binging on The Witness. This has slowly become one of my top-three games ever. It’s brilliant. Sublime.

POSSIBLE WITNESS SPOLERS:I’ve lit all the lasers and is going into the mountain, currently past the epilepsy-inducing cycling color puzzles, now stuck at the one after where you must remember icons from earlier panels as the rules remain on the next one. Gah. I have solved just about ever overland puzzle, except the black pillar ones.

Played a little of Thief 4: The reboot. I never finished it last time, seems I gave up on level 3, so restarted. Flashes of a really good game in there, maybe even a good Thief game, mechanics-wise. Levels are decently sized and have lots of secrets. But the plot is “meh” at best and feels AAA homogenized. It doesn’t feel like Garrett and Erin is an awful character.

I just finished The Witness this week, and I’m equally in love. There’s just something special about games that value their players’ time.

> now stuck at the one after where you must remember icons from earlier panels as the rules remain on the next one

If I’m right about which puzzle this is, you can just stand further back from the row of panels and solve any of them while having all panels in view.

—

Finally, once you (or anyone else) have truly finished the game (as in, “I think I have seen everything the game has to offer”, or even “I am satisfied with what I’ve seen of the game”), here’s an awesome video with John Blow that’s full of heavy spoilers for The Witness but also contains tons of design insights: link to youtube.com

Wing Commander Prophecy
I had to fight with a few fixes to get it working with openGL and DVD cutscenes but it was worthy, the graphics are really nice at high resolution and with insanely high AA and AF.
Of course like any Wing Commander game the energy management has to be something that’s impossible to use in combat without being a sitting duck, well, at least now I know where that weird Star Citizen triangle display came from and it’s nice to have a flight engine that lets you fine tune your aim.

I’ve always had a soft spot for that game. It’s a fun space shooter, and had probably the most entertaining FMV cut scenes in a game. Extremely cheesy but charming with it thanks to some pretty decent actors who are obviously having fun. Some of the weapons were great fun too, even more so in the expansion (which sadly reduces the cut scenes to voice only, with a minimal cast).

I particularly like how, in the WC tradition, there are several varied cut scenes following your death, depending on how far you were into the story when you died.

It’s a bit hard to take the ‘these aliens are a terrible threat’ plot seriously when your single carrier has a 1000:1 kill ratio against them, but still.

And about 80-90% of those kills will be yours, to boot. I love Wing Commander to pieces, I have a real soft spot for Prophecy despite it being something of a black sheep, and I really rather like the characters, but your wingmen are usually almost entirely useless. Secret Ops had the same problem. In both games I found myself loving these characters as characters, but never counting on them for a second in combat.

Yes! But one oddly fun side effect was that you almost never bother to ask for help… so when you do, your character’s strained “I can’t shake this bug!” sounds REALLY PANICKED. And then you probably die anyway, because they’re useless. But at least they’re fun.

Seeing as how Siege of Dragonspear has been released, I’ve started a new run with the aim of going through the entire saga.

These games are such treasures, and that’s not nostalgia speaking – I played them for the first time 3 years ago and Shadows of Amn instantly became my favorite RPG. Speaks volumes about the quality when a game that old still holds up this well.

I’ll be playing Prototype. I think I’m near the end now and it’s become a bit of a slog… but due to the increase in anti-air towards the end at least the solution to everything isn’t just to hijack a ‘copter and blast the target from 3000ft anymore

I finally started playing. Always wanted to. But the bad controls, the bad UI and everything else bad about it stopped me in my first attemtps. And the supposed difficulty always made me hesitate.

I finally got through. Spent a lot of hours in the Undead Burg getting my keybinds and controls right, learning the UI, learning the moves, etc. I was careful with my souls, so I leveled up a bit. Those extra 10 levels made the early game a bit easier. Great game. Had great fun so far.

Triggered. Although, as with other bottlenecks in the game (that bastard Capra Demon for one), once you know how to do it it’s so much easier (if never easy).

I just did that bit again last night. If you can sprint from cover all the way up the slope they won’t hit you, then turn right at the time and time your rolls from the shots behind and in front, get yourself up against the silver knight on the right and the one behind you won’t shoot at you any more. Then it’s a question of parrying the knight, or turtling and watching your stamina and edging against the wall until he falls off.

I can do it first time every time now. Until I allow myself to believe that, at which point I fail.